These values propelled her into service. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1997, Laura served in the Navy for six years as a surface warfare officer completing two deployments to the Middle East, participating in national tasking related to Afghanistan as well as coalition work with the United Nations in East Timor. Laura graduated from the Army Airborne school in Ft. Benning, Georgia; was one of the first two women integrating a U.S. warship; and at 23-years-old qualified Officer of the Deck (OOD) of a $1B warship.

Upon her return home to Florida in 2003, Laura joined the construction industry, earning her commercial general contractors license, U.S. Green Building Council LEED AP designation and working on a number of design-build projects with The Beck Group including the Southwest Airlines terminal at Tampa International Airport. In 2015, Laura  was asked by Tom James of Raymond James Financial to serve as the project director for the development of The James Museum of Western & Wildlife Art and associated real estate in downtown St. Petersburg. In 2019, Tom asked Laura to serve as the museum’s Executive Director which she did until stepping down in 2023 to spend her full-time in public education.

Laura earned a Bachelors of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and a Masters of Business Administration in Finance and International Business from USF St. Petersburg. She is married to Hank Hine who serves as the Executive Director of The Dali Museum; together they have two young children, two grown children and one grandchild.

As their now 12 and 9 year old children came of age for school, Laura came alive to: the importance of strong public education as vital to our communities and to our country; that it’s not enough for education to be excellent for her own children, it must be so for all children; and that to ensure so, one must take pride in and engage in one’s local school to build community and to support those educators to be the best they can be. 

 

In 2015, Laura co-founded the non-profit Friends of North Shore Elementary, then engaged in leadership through PTA all the time gathering families and asking the teachers and leaders, “what can we do for you?” Laura’s passion for exceptional education for all students grew and fueled her to ask the community to serve on the school board in 2020. 

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Laura currently serves as Chair of the Pinellas County School Board, Chair of the Pinellas County Health and Human Services Leadership Board, member of the District Safety and Security Committee and member of the City of St Petersburg Future of Work Task Force. Laura also serves as Secretary of John Hopkins Middle School PTSA, as a lay reader at their church, St. Thomas Episcopal, and recently as the assistant coach of the boys volleyball team at John Hopkins Middle School. Like her parents, Laura has always volunteered in the community; child life services at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, Exalted Warrior Foundation for wounded veterans, several boards to include Girl Scouts of West Central Florida and Studio@620 and coaching Little League for several years just to name a few. 

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Laura believes that strong public education is vital to our communities, vital to our democracy, and that education can be and must be exceptional for all students.